The rewriting of the history of Islamic science
is now receiving
large attention both from Muslim and non-Muslim scientists
after a lack of interest that lasted almost a century after the
fall of the Islamic empire. It is indeed quite inconceivable to
know little
about scholars who, during more than ten centuries, wrote
in all branches of science, at a time when the whole of the
Western world
was in its deep darkness.

It is often well emphasized that Muslims received
inherited Greek knowledge with great consideration. What is less
known, howwvwe, is that they did not
not restrict themselves to saving it and then passing it intact
to future generations, they in fact enlarged and enriched it with
new
and original ideas. It can be said, without any doubt, that the
whole of Greek learning was completely rethought by the Muslims
and that without this renovation, the Western renaissance could
not have come about.

In our present time, it is very astonishing to
note that the
Islamic contribution to civilization is often undermined by the
West
despite the fact that in several cases, medieval Western scholars
diligently imitated, copied and plagiarized the works of Muslim
scientists. In 1979, a historian of the Frankfurt University won
the First King Faisal Foundation Prize for Islamic scholarship;
his
work showed that in the 12th century, a decree was issued in
Seville, forbidding the sale of scientific writings to
Christians because the latter translated the writings and
simply published them under another name. The research work of
this
historian has taken him 30 years of his life and required a
survey of more
than 1.5 million Arabic manuscripts.

In another example, it has been shown
at an international symposium on the subject " East
and West in the Middle Ages" held in 1969, that in the third
book of Copernicus' On the Revolution of the Heavenly
spheres," in the chapter (iv) " How the reciprocal
movement of libration is composed of circular movements,"
the basic lemma was taken from the work of the famous Persian
mathematician, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.

The achievements of Muslim scientists in
astronomy, physics,
biology, medicine, chemistry, and mathematics are poorly known.
Many of the known achievements are attributed to Western
scientists. For example, the discovery and the whole concept of
planetary motion is attributed to Kepler and Copernicus while
not crediting the contribution of Ibn Al-Shatir, the Damascene
astronomer (1304-1375 A.D) who, among his works, wrote a major
book entitled "
Kitab Nihayat al-Sul fi Tashih al-Usul" ( A Final
Inquiry Concerning the Rectification of Planetary Theory) on a
theory
which departs largely from the Ptolemaic system known at that
time. In his book " Ibn al-Shatir, an Arab astronomer of
the fourteenth century, E.S.Kennedy wrote " what is of
most interest, however, is that Ibn al-Shatir's lunar theory,
except for trivial differences in parameters, is identical with
that of Copernicus (1473-1543 A.D)." The discovery that the
models of Ibn al-Shatir are mathematically identical to those
of Copernicus raised the very interesting question of a possible
transmission of these models to Europe.

A scholar such as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274
A.D)
should also be mentioned when discussing the planetary models
of Copernicus. Al-Tusi's best known works in astronomy
are the " Ilkhani Tables" and the
Tadhkirah". The latter is the most thorough criticism of
Ptolemaic astronomy and presents the only new mathematical model
of planetary motion to appear in Medieval times. Kennedy wrote a
note about al-Tusi's planetary model saying :
al-Tusi seems to have been the first to notice that if
one circle rolls around inside the circumference of another, the
second circle having twice the radius of the first, then any
point on the periphery of the first circle describes a diameter
of the second. This rolling device can also be regarded as a
linkage of two equal and constant length vectors rotating at
constant speed (one twice as fast as the other) . This has been
the Tusi-couple. Nasir al-Din, by properly placing
such a couple at the end of a vector emanating from the Ptolemaic
equant center caused the vector to periodically expand and
contract. The period of its expansion being equal to that of the
epicycle's rotation about the Earth, the end-point of the couple
carries the epicycle center with it and traces out a deferent
which fulfills all the conditions imposed upon it by Ptolemy's
observations. At the same time, the whole assemblage is a
combination of uniform circular motions, hence unobjectionable,
and it preserves the equant property, also demanded by the
phenomenon itself." This planetary model most likely
influenced Copernicus through Byzantine intermediaries and, with
the work of al-Tusi's followers, contains all the novelty
of Copernicus's astronomy except the heliocentric
hypothesis.

Al-Battani, another Muslim astronomer, is to be
credited
for the discovery of the movement of the sun's apogee, the
evaluation
with great precision of the ecliptic's obliquity, and its
progressive diminution. Contrary to Ptolemy, al-Battani
proved the variation of the apparent angular diameter of the sun,
and the possibility of annular solar eclipses. The indebtedness
of Copernicus to al-Battani is well known. He quotes him
fairly often especially in matters dealing with the problems of
solar motion and of precession. The Baghdad School noted the
irregularity of the Moon's highest altitude and discovered a
third lunar inequality, known by the name of lunar variation.
This was discovered by Abu'l Wafa (a crater on the Moon is
named after him) and is wrongly attributed to the Danish scholar,
Tycho Brahe, who lived six centuries after Abu'l Wafa. The
introduction to spherical astronomy was with al-Battani.
He was the first to use in his works the expression
sine" and " cosine" The introduction to
trigonometry of these concepts proved to be of capital
importance. This was credited to Regimontanus who lived five
centuries after al-Battani. Another Muslim astronomer,
al-Bitruji, considered Ptolemy's system to be
mathematically not physical regarding the order of the spheres of
the inferior planets. Finally, we should also mention al-Mahani
(b.860 A.D) who was able to predict three lunar eclipses within
an half hour's accuracy.

These are only a few examples of the achievements
astronomy. Other examples exist in other fields as well. It is an
important task now to reconsider this tremendous heritage, since
Islamic science has not yet gained its rightful place. The
scientific achievements of Muslim scholars in medieval time have
yet to be fully recognized and duly appreciated in the
West.

It will be very unjust from our part to state
that the history of
Islamic science has been completely neglected. Scholars like H.
Suter, C. Brockelmann, H.P.J. Renaud, M. Krause, G. Sarton, J.
Sedillot,
F. Woepcke, C.A. Nallino, 0. Neugebauer, E.S. Kennedy, A.P.
Youschkevitch, B.A. Rosenfeld, 0. Gingerich, D.A. King, A.
Sayili, and many others have contributed a lot to our present
knowledge of Muslim scholars of medieval times. Original
manuscripts have been translated and analyzed after carefull
identifications by Muslim and non-Muslim historians. Many
libraries and museums over all the world hold thousands of these
manuscripts still awaiting detailed studies necessary to grasp
the full importance of Islamic science. The task can be difficult
for the historian of science since many of the works do not exist
in their original Arabic forms. Some Latin translations are just
pure literary translations without any regards to the scientific
contents. This has brought about some scientific inconsistencies
with what is known from different other sources putting in doubt
the contribution of some important Muslim scholars.

When still a graduate student, I was attracted by the history of
science in medieval Islam because I felt that some injustice is
being done to al-Biruni, al-Khwarizmi, Ibn
al-Haytham, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, al-Tabari,
al-Farghani Ibn al-Shatir, al-Kashi, and so
many others regarding their contribution to our present knowledge
of science. It is difficult to realize the place of Islamic
science since the available sources are so widely spread and the
information so widely different. When I started my research, I
felt the need to have a document with all the answers to my
questions, but I could not find one. Many important works exist
on the contributions of Muslim scholars, but most of them are
either outdated or in a language that cannot help the reader to
grasp the full importance of these scholars. This is where this
new bibliography falls in. It should first be noted that this
book is mainly a bibliographical research. Most of the
information exists elsewhere and has been reported here with
full credit. The main purpose of this work is to have a handy
document for easy reference, while the sophisticated reader is
urged to refer to the main original article or to the tremendous
secondary references for a deep study. In all cases, this first
edition is a tentative approach to the history of Islamic science
and the list of scholars reported is by no means complete.

I hope that you will enjoy reading this
bibliography as much as I enjoyed
writing it. I will be glad to hear from the readers, and I invite
you to
send me your reactions to the book and suggestions for how I can
improve future
editions. You can send your comments to the address given in my
homepage.